Life Isn’t About Avoiding the Storms, It’s About Learning to Dance in the Rain

Life is full of storms and always will be. Some days are a heavy rain, other days a light drizzle, and other days are torrential floods. And the fact is that these stormy days will come and go throughout our entire life because no matter how much we wish it could be all sunshine and rainbows, life simply doesn’t happen that way.

Recently a very dear friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery to remove her tumors only to find that the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes and now she has to go in for further scans and surgeries to see just how far the cancer has spread.  She has every reason to fall apart, curl up in a ball, kick and scream, be angry and scared and worried sick, and all the other emotions so many of us have when we are dealing with something devastating and unfair.  But she doesn’t do anything like that.  Instead she is handling her situation with grace and elegance.  Her attitude and her outlook is amazing and she is such a great example to me and everyone who knows her of how to handle hardship with grace and faith.

You could spend all of your days being anxious about the storms happening today, or worrying about the storms that might hit you tomorrow, but the fact is that being anxious or worrying won’t stop the storm from coming or make it disappear.  So it does you no good whatsoever to actually worry about the rain that you are seeing in your life or the storms that are showing in your forecast for tomorrow – if they are meant to come, they will come, and the likelihood is that you are meant to learn and grow from them.  So if you can change your mindset to actually view the storms as a gift from God that will help make you into a better and stronger person, then ultimately you make it possible to do what the quote suggests and learn to dance in the rain.

How empowered would we be if we could truly look at life that way?  There is a huge peace that comes with being comfortable and secure with uncertainty.  The funny part is that whether you choose to be comfortable with uncertainty or not, the reality of life as that everything is totally uncertain, no matter how many well laid plans you make for your life, no matter how much you try to fight to have control, you can never truly force certainty in life.  Life is simply uncertain and always will be.  So if you can accept that fact and have confidence that things will evolve as they should so long as you are doing your best, you will have tremendous peace come into your life and feel incredibly empowered as you move forward.  Plus, dancing in the rain is so much fun!

~Amy

2 Comments

  • Andrew Bronson says:

    I know that friend of yours. She’s truly as you say. She inspires me and brightens my every day. Even when her trials are great and mine are small, her concern is for me. Every once in awhile, if you’re very lucky, you meet someone who’s exactly what they seem to be and has the qualities you wish you had. Not just the image of it, but uniquely what you would be if you could just absorb the qualities. It’s rare and precious. She’s that person. We’re blessed to be her friends.

  • Shari says:

    Lovely piece again Amy. You have a knack for. It. If you want an extra set of eyes before you hit send just let me know, hard to catch typos on your own writing!

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